I mean it's real Chinese income backed by fake paperwork. There's PRC capital controls, rich PRC national who buy RE abroad are going to do it via laundering services and has been for decade+. Banks are fine with this and have dedicated branches in diasphora area to handle because the money is good and reliable. Sometimes rich Chinese immigrants also do odd jobs to fill time, bored aunties with multi million dollar mansions in Richmond working shifts at River Rock Casino. It's a bizarre world.
"Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
21–30 of 417 posts
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#22It's quite bizarre any jurisdiction would allow someone to buy housing there when they can't legally live in it.
Foreign-owned homes are a problem for asset acquirers. Vacant homes are a problem for anyone who needs housing. The former seems to get a lot of visibilty when concerns around the latter get raised.
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#23https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2013/investing-n...
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#24I hadn't thought of this possibility when the exit was announced.
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#25> “I am going to reveal potential mortgage fraud at HSBC Bank Canada and possibly some employees benefited from the fraud, financially pocketing thousands of dollars, which I call the proceeds of crime.”
> FINTRAC’s study doesn’t say that Canadian banks knowingly issued fake-income mortgages to Chinese diaspora buyers in Toronto. But in an interview, D.M. said banking staff are trained to guard against fraud, and the loan application packages he reviewed in Aurora beggared belief.
> The Bureau’s review of HSBC Canada emails and D.M.’s text messages, shows he came to believe numerous employees at the Aurora branch had direct knowledge of faked Chinese income mortgages, and a veteran manager with oversight of more than 10 Greater Toronto branches knew about broad and questionable mortgage lending for Chinese diaspora clients.
> Pointing to specific examples, D.M. claimed that another branch colleague had admitted processing numerous loan applications without meeting his clients, because a branch manager delivered her subordinates foreign income client applications so “they did not have to get sales themselves.”
> “She said yes, she knows specially in Mainland China there is a team who would even answer emails and phone calls verifying [Chinese income] but it’s a sophisticated and well organised scam,” D.M. 's email to HSBC Canada managers says. [...] “When I asked for such a serious issue if she raised a HSBC confidential [complaint] or not she evaded my question,” D.M. wrote. “Now we all love numbers, but I don't think the bank will like these kinds of numbers achieved through this way.”
Sounds like that branch is compromised
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? Should we restrict other investments with similar logic? For example should non-residents not be allowed to purchase vacation properties and lease them? The impulse to enlist the government to regulate private property and investments is not productive and results in endless encroachment of individual liberties and rights to governments.
Something drastic has to be done about the cost of housing if we're to leave a functional society to the next generation.
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#27> But more than a year later, D.M. was so dissatisfied with the bank’s response that I only recognize the HSBC name from scandals in the news: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Controversies
Look at any wiki article on any major global bank, the chapter about 'controversies and legal issues' is always a thick list, HSBC ain't worse or better than others. There are no good guys there, that's not why the business was set up and corresponding folks were/are hired. If you want more controls, enforce more regulations, they do work if well defined.
I agree there are no good guys here, but there are shades.
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#28IANAFinancialInvestigator, but skimming through it sounds like: 1. Fraudulent applicants come to the bank with crazy stories to ask for enormous loans/mortgages toward a Toronto house, allegedly to turn hyper-suspicious big piles of cash into a more reputable-looking asset. 2. HSBC goes along with that because they want to suckle on the sweet regular payments of suspicious cash, even though they ought to damn well kn…
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#29It's quite bizarre any jurisdiction would allow someone to buy housing there when they can't legally live in it.
Approximately anyone can buy a US-based REIT, even if they're ineligible to enter the country.
Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks
#30It's quite bizarre any jurisdiction would allow someone to buy housing there when they can't legally live in it.
Why? Should we restrict other investments with similar logic? For example should non-residents not be allowed to purchase vacation properties and lease them? The impulse to enlist the government to regulate private property and investments is not productive and results in endless encroachment of individual liberties and rights to governments.